2010 National Chinese Music Competition

This December, two eight-year-olds, Yu Chiu Jung and Xu Kai Jia, will compete in thepipa solo section and the yangqin solo section of the 2010 National Chinese Music Competition (NCMC) respectively. They are the youngest participants among 353 promising young musicians who have registered for the biennial platform. As an established platform for music excellence, the national competition aims to develop the performing skills of musicians and uncover a new generation of talents for the industry. Participants showcase their skills before an international panel of judges in a competitive environment.

The National Arts Council (NAC) had been the sole competition organiser for the past six seasons since it debuted in 1998. With the competition into its 7th edition, the Council has set the stage for young talent to scale new performing heights by partnering the Singapore Chinese Orchestra (SCO) to co-organise the event for the first time. Selected prize winners can look forward to the rare opportunity of performing with Singapore’s only professional Chinese orchestra as part of the NCMC’s talent development initiative at the Prize Winners’ Concert. In addition, first prize winners of the Solo Open Category in the 7th NCMC can apply for up to $8,000 in financial assistance for training and development purposes to boost their competencies and advance professional standing beyond the competition platform.

Elaine Ng, director of Arts Development in NAC said, “The Council has been stepping up efforts to develop and promote the traditional arts as they offer a strong grounding in and offer rich insights to our heritage and culture. Chinese orchestral music, as one of the most popular and longstanding forms of traditional arts, is an area that we aim to build more capabilities for, in order to attract new talent and expand audience base. By collaborating with SCO, we hope to seed higher participation numbers as well as raise greater awareness of our traditional artistic expressions.”

The competition consists of a Solo and an Ensemble Section. The Solo Section features eight instruments: dizi, erhu, guzheng, pipa, sheng, suona, yangqin andzhongruan. Each solo instrument is open to three age categories: the Junior category (12 years & below), Youth category (18 years & below), and Open category (30 years and below). The Ensemble Section comprises the Combined Instrumental Ensemble and the Percussion Ensemble. Over $68,000 worth of prizes are up for grabs.

The Competition will culminate in a Prize Winners’ Concert and Prize Presentation Ceremony on 12 December 2010 at Singapore Conference Hall. The Guest-of-Honour for the Prize Presentation Ceremony is Lui Tuck Yew, Minister for Information, Communications & the Arts. To enrich the experiences of participants, master classes will be held by the adjudicators on 11 December at Singapore Conference Hall.

The Competition Preliminaries and Finals are free to the public. Tickets for the Prize Winners’ Concert and master classes are priced at $10 and $5 per session respectively and will be available from SISTIC from 30 November onwards. Ticket prices exclude SISTIC handling fee.

Please refer to Annex A for master class schedule and Annex B for adjudicators’ bios